Attitudes and Perceptions Relating to Implementation and Success in Operational Research

This paper presents a study of a group of O.R. projects. The major emphasis of the research was on a comparison of both the managers' and the O.R. practitioners' perceptions and attitudes. The results show a large amount of agreement between the two groups, and the main disagreement concerned their confidence in the solution. A principal component analysis of the data followed by an orthogonal rotation produced a set of eight principal factors. These were then used for a regression analysis having implementation and success as dependent variables. The results indicate that major differences are seen in the relationship of the dependents to the factors when analysed separately for managers and practitioners. Most of the variance in the implementation score of practitioners is ‘explained’ by attitudinal variables, but this is not true for managers. Implications of the research for this Churchman/Schainblatt concept of "mutual understanding" are suggested.